Mark "Rizzn" Hopkinshttp://rizzn.com
Your friend and mine.Mon, 13 Jul 2015 03:26:23 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.2.3Ellen Pao is a great object lesson for the Dunning-Kruger Effecthttp://rizzn.com/2015/07/13/ellen-pao-dunning-kruger-effect/
http://rizzn.com/2015/07/13/ellen-pao-dunning-kruger-effect/#commentsMon, 13 Jul 2015 03:19:12 +0000http://rizzn.com/?p=3997Ellen Pao is a great object lesson for the Dunning-Kruger Effect is a post from: Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
]]>There’s a lot of perspectives on if and why Reddit is in its death throes right now (Duncan and Eric at SiliconANGLE have been doing a good job covering the story). I’m personally of the opinion that they bought themselves a stay of execution by releasing Pao, but only time will tell if it pulls them from the death spiral.

“For a person in Pao’s position, not knowing how your own system and software works is a massive fail. Not bringing in someone in PR to help you craft the message and get it posted appropriately is a big fail. There were organizational failures that other parts of Reddit let this happen without someone hauling her into a room and saying “you need help. Let’s figure this out” is a big fail; or perhaps they tried and she wouldn’t listen. Either way, huge failure. That Pao initially tried to spin this in the press instead of work this out with the community is a fail that’s a combination of her background working through the politics of executive boardrooms and her VC background — but it’s still a fail. All of this leads to the inevitable conclusion that she was the wrong person to be leading Reddit (and now, she no longer is), and that the board made a bad hire bringing her in.”

Without naming names, there are a lot of organizations that can benefit from the object lesson that is Ellen Pao’s Reddit right now.

Putting a manager or executive in place that doesn’t understand the systems the company is built on will result in serious, often irreparable damage to the company. What tends to happen when you have a tone deaf manager or executive is extreme loss of morale internal to the company, and the subordinates just sort of … let the executive fail. If the company itself is lucky, then it won’t mean its demise.

Tech companies have a hard road to go down in this respect. In this modern age, any scaling product company worth being passionate about has an esoteric knowledge set – and those who understand the product the best aren’t always the best managers. I’ve seen it in every company I’ve ever worked for, though, to one degree or another: when a company scales to a certain point, they bring in a non-Subject Matter Expert to manage a department, and because of a combination of unearned arrogance and unwillingness (or inability) to learn, they start making tone-deaf decisions that lead to the demise of the product and the morale of the team.

Monty Python’s John Cleese actually talked about this on a recent (and infamous) appearance on TheCUBE:

“In order to know how good you are at something requires almost exactly the abilities that it does to be good at that thing in the first place,” Cleese said, explaining the idea behind the self assessment and the Dunning-Kruger effect. “So if you’re absolutely no good at something, you lack exactly the abilities that you need to know that you’re no f—ing good at it. And that explains the planet better than anything else I’ve ever come across.”

If you’re a director or an executive, this can be a difficult but not impossible chasm to cross, but one worth paying attention to if you want to have a healthy company and the support of your troops.

Conjunctured, Austin’s first coworking space and one of the original coworking spaces in the world, will be closing its doors at the end of August. Conjunctured first pioneered the coworking movement in Austin six years ago, when coworking was a brand new concept.

I was privileged to have debuted Conjectured on Mashable when I was Associate Editor over there. They weren’t the very first coworking spaces in Texas, but they were one of the most active in evangelizing social media, new media and the startup ethos in Austin.

I’ve got mixed feelings about them shutting their doors, but it seems like they’ll be carrying on the tradition of evangelizing coworking, only this time worldwide, rather than statewide.

Because Conjunctured was the first to introduce me to coworking as a concept (and then through me to the rest of the audience at Mashable), this is most certainly a big part of their DNA and legacy. I’ll be interested in following the next chapters of their story.

Michael Dell on theCUBE with John Furrier and Dave Vellante at DellWorld 2012.

Maybe I nicked this statement from someone, or maybe I come up with it, but a phrase I use a lot when I talk to people about Digital Autonomous Organizations is “.. the economy and the state are engineering problems, not political ones.”

“When I look at the big opportunities that exist in the world and the big unsolved problems, be they in medicine, in education, in energy or the environment, I think that these are problems that technology will solve.”

“I think about the innovation that’s occurred over the last couple decades that I’ve been in this industry where IT used to be this sort of back room activity with a couple of guys wearing pocket protectors involved in, and now you essentially can’t even run a business if technology isn’t involved.”

A few months after he said this on our show, he went on to take Dell private, a move that’s allowed them to go deep into bleeding edge technology moves like Bitcoin and 3D printing.

Dells moves in 3D printing have forced competitors to get serious about the business as well (like HP).

We might be at the knee of the curve here; Dell’s acceptance of Bitcoin just might push other major enterprise players to start thinking about Bitcoin in the same way.

[Originally posted by me to /r/bitcoin. Feel free to upvote it there if you like it.]

]]>http://rizzn.com/2014/07/19/dell-bitcoin/feed/0What Does “Verified Account” Actually Mean?http://rizzn.com/2014/07/08/verified-account/
http://rizzn.com/2014/07/08/verified-account/#commentsTue, 08 Jul 2014 17:20:56 +0000http://rizzn.com/?p=3924What Does “Verified Account” Actually Mean? is a post from: Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
]]>“The @BarackObama Twitter handle is maintained by OFA [Organizing For Action], that is the political organization that was the offshoot of the campaign,” Earnest told Jonathan Karl of ABC News, who asked whether the president reads or approves his tweets. “And that is a Twitter handle that is maintained independent of the White House.”

I read these words this morning during my daily “what’s up in the world” scan of the headlines.

Aside from the implications of carelessness by our current Executive Branch, I wonder if it’s fair that Twitter maintain the certifications for the President’s twitter account. The “verified account status” is a social cue to social media users that if the actual person implied to own the account doesn’t personally maintain it, they at the very least endorse and agree with the content on this account.

It’s clear from the official statement (and other comments to the press) that the @BarackObama twitter account isn’t technically even owned by the president, but is the “brand account” for the Organizing for America SuperPAC.

Should this account be verified? If this was Miley Cyrus’s verified account, let’s say, and she said some things that were off message for her via the social media channel (let’s say she made a social faux pas, something homophobic or racist). If she came out in the media the day after and claimed that her manager hired a PR or marketing firm to run her account with no oversight or buy in from her, could or should Twitter maintain the “verified account” status?

Keep in mind that we’re not talking about minimal or limited oversight, as is the case with some social media known-quantities like George Takei or Cali Lewis, who will employ “ghost tweeters” to assist them in keeping their accounts full of fresh content while they travel. In most cases, they treat these accounts like editorial operations, where they have veto and oversight of the content going out. In our fictional Miley Cyrus (and real-life President Obama) example, the personalities of the account no longer have any connection to the actual account.

So given that, is it fair or accurate to call these accounts “verified” any longer?

Many years ago, now, Twitter made the decision to position itself no longer as a platform, but as a crowd-sourced content site. They make significant loads of cash from selling advertising against their data, as well as re-selling the data itself to other for-profit entities.

No sane person would hold Twitter responsible for every errant tweet on the system, but for the user accounts where there is implied endorsement by the company that the account is legitimate, what level of culpability does Twitter hold in maintaining the accuracy of their raft of “verified accounts”? Should Twitter be actively policing and re-verifying to prevent data-rot, or is once enough?

1 Comments

]]>http://rizzn.com/2014/07/08/verified-account/feed/1RTFA: Did you know the Supreme Court writes this stuff down?http://rizzn.com/2014/06/30/rtfa-supreme-court/
http://rizzn.com/2014/06/30/rtfa-supreme-court/#commentsMon, 30 Jun 2014 17:47:55 +0000http://rizzn.com/?p=3920RTFA: Did you know the Supreme Court writes this stuff down? is a post from: Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
]]>One of my biggest pet peeves: Idiots who refuse to listen to the oral arguments or read the written decisions of the Supreme Court, but are somehow legal experts and pundits.

Yes, I’m probably talking about you… many of you reading this status message have posted completely asinine analysis of the recent raft of Supreme Court decisions and clearly haven’t read them but still feel compelled to share out that Mother Jones article or that awesome analysis you found at a guest post on Mashable.

There’s almost no reason to read analysis of Supreme Court decisions anymore (certainly not the hamfisted chaff passed off as analysis at most pubs these days), since the horse’s mouth is literally available the instant the decision is public.

You can listen to and read the oral arguments, free, no paywall. You can read the entire decision, majority opinion and minority opinion (if any). In fact, I suggest you do so rather than read the tripe you think is good. Most of the time, you’ll find that it to be a refreshing experience, devoid of the polemics of debate you see in Facebookland, but still accessible and written plainly.

Or, you can carry on in your ignorance and earn my derision. Either way is fine – just don’t be surprised when your “clever analysis” where you refer to the SCOTUS as the SCROTUM makes all your friends universally regard you as a moron.

Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini, one of the first to raise the alarm, said increases “could go as high as 100 percent.”

I just did my taxes last night. I spent in excess of 15% of my income on health insurance premiums last year. Assuming I don’t get a raise when these predicted hikes come along, I’ll spend almost a third of my income in insurance premiums, if these quotes are correct.

The screams of the ideologues of the left still echo in my head from during the ACA debates. Many of them are reading this post right now… I know them, and some of you know them. They screamed at people like me who raised the concern that this law was untenable, saying things like: “I have kids with pre-existing conditions that you obviously want to die.”

I don’t know what I want to say to these people now. I do know that if a third of my income gets taxed to the insurance companies, I’m faced with the choice of paying the fine or giving up the mortgage payment.

]]>http://rizzn.com/2014/04/14/the-aca-is-not-tenable/feed/0Foreigners’ Acts of Love and Other Scary Thingshttp://rizzn.com/2014/04/10/immigration/
http://rizzn.com/2014/04/10/immigration/#commentsThu, 10 Apr 2014 17:49:29 +0000http://rizzn.com/?p=3812Foreigners’ Acts of Love and Other Scary Things is a post from: Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
]]>Even though I’m loathe to vote for another Bush for office (there are many other fully qualified candidates out there with less statist tendencies, and no one is looking for Bush v. Clinton II: The Reckoning), this full on attack on the “acts of love” quote is un-American and borderline racist.

According to a 2007 CBO study, while illegal immigrants are a net deficit to the economy, legal citizens at the same income levels as the average illegal immigrant cost about $40,000 more per year per person.

How is this possible? Well, according to studies, most undocumented workers pay taxes (income and SS), but do not collect the benefits of their retirement programs and unemployment benefits.

“But,” you say… “But the jobs!!!11!one”

A 2006 study by the Texas State Comptroller estimated that the 1.4 million undocumented immigrants in Texas alone added almost $18 billion to the state’s economic output, and more than paid for the $1.2 billion in state services they used by generating $1.6 billion in new state revenues.

Research by Harvard University’s George Borjas found that the influx of immigrants (both legal and illegal) from Mexico and Central America from 1980 to 2000 accounted for a 3.7% wage loss for American workers (4.5% for black Americans and 5% for Hispanic Americans).

Conversely, a study by Economist Giovanni Peri concluded that between 1990 and 2004, immigrant workers raised the wages of native born workers in general by 4%.

So can we please stop demonizing immigrants? I know that this appeals to the jingoistic, tribal tendencies that live in the deep dark recesses of all of us, but it’s not right. Welcoming everyone to our borders is what makes America great. The melting pot should be encouraged.

In America, the concensus opinion is that racism is bad, something to can be literally illegal, in some situations. More fundamentally, the declaration of independence reads: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Unalienable, not inalienable. That’s a key distinction most people miss. According to Black’s Law Dictionary, unalienable is defined as “incapable of being alienated, that is, sold and transferred.”

A 1952 decision in Morrison v. State (Mo. App., 252 S.W.2d 97, 101) defined inalienable rights, however, as rights which are not capable of being surrendered or transferred without the consent of the one possessing such rights.

You spot the difference? There’s nothing you can do to lose an unalienable right, according to the American creed – not even if you want to. And “all men are endowed .. with certain unalienable Rights.” Yet our immigration stance in this country sends the caveat that anyone born outside American borders is somehow not mankind, or those certain unalienable rights only apply if you were lucky enough to be born on this side of the American border.

More succinctly, the message is: “everyone non-American is worse than a second class citizen – you should not have a shot at citizenship at all.”

This is not a new topic for me. I’ve been writing about this for years. There isn’t some new information or some new argument you can come up with that I haven’t heard about illegal immigration. If you don’t agree that our policy is screwed in the US, you just haven’t researched it enough. We need to fix this. We’re only hurting ourselves until we come up with a comprehensive solution around letting more immigration occur. This isn’t an easy problem, but pretending all illegal immigrants are just narco-terrorists trying to kill you is not going to solve the problem.

]]>http://rizzn.com/2014/04/10/immigration/feed/0Has the US Government become an outdated relic?http://rizzn.com/2014/03/31/ignorance/
http://rizzn.com/2014/03/31/ignorance/#commentsMon, 31 Mar 2014 21:03:55 +0000http://rizzn.com/?p=3809Has the US Government become an outdated relic? is a post from: Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
]]>How many people (experts, if you will) do you think you’d have to gather into a room to understand the totality of federally enforceable American law?

Let’s make this simpler… How many people (again, trained experts in the law, so we can somewhat reduce the number) do you think would be required to understand the totality of federally enforceable American law that was passed for 2013?

Ignorance of the law excuses no man, as the axiom goes. I wonder if you can say that still truly applies when the number of experts required to know the totality of the law is hard to imagine, even for those with large imaginations.

2 Comments

At March 31, 2014, DW wrote:
There is, and can be, no single person of any background or training, who can be aware of and know the totality of all currently effective laws. Our laws have become so burdensome that ANY citizen can be arrested and *some* crime be found that he is guilty of.At March 31, 2014, DW wrote:
And more to your question, I don't believe *any* number of legal experts brought together, could collectively know of every currently enforceable law.

]]>http://rizzn.com/2014/03/31/ignorance/feed/2Bad Production is Painfulhttp://rizzn.com/2014/03/13/bad-production-is-painful/
http://rizzn.com/2014/03/13/bad-production-is-painful/#commentsThu, 13 Mar 2014 22:38:27 +0000http://rizzn.com/?p=3793Bad Production is Painful is a post from: Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
]]>Good: Everyone is doing live streaming now at their events.
Bad: In far too many cases, they’re doing it poorly.

If you need help with live streaming, give us a call at SiliconANGLE. We’ve been doing this for five years. We’ve figured out a few things. We want to help you.

On a not at all related note, the transcript and partial video from the SxSWi Snowden keynote is available.

]]>http://rizzn.com/2014/03/13/bad-production-is-painful/feed/0Jacob Li Hopkins’ Newcomer’s Guide to Dr. Who.http://rizzn.com/2014/03/11/jacob-li-hopkins-newcomers-guide-to-dr-who/
http://rizzn.com/2014/03/11/jacob-li-hopkins-newcomers-guide-to-dr-who/#commentsTue, 11 Mar 2014 06:59:24 +0000http://rizzn.com/?p=3791Jacob Li Hopkins’ Newcomer’s Guide to Dr. Who. is a post from: Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
]]>This is less of a guide to Dr. Who for Newcomers, and more of a guide to Dr. Who *by* a newcomer.

Every time my son Jacob and I go to the comic store, he wants a Dr. Who toy.

Jacob, who is six, has never watched an episode in his life.

So we were there at the store the other day, and again he asks for a Dr. Who toy, again. In response, I say to him “You can’t even tell me anything about Dr. Who. You don’t watch it.”

And then he proceeds to tell me all about Dr. Who. Apparently, he has researched it on the Internet.

Knowing my son, he probably remembered from the last time I’d told him that at the comic store, and had been sitting on the information for months, just waiting for me to bring it up again.

After we left the store, we went to Denny’s where I had him re-tell to me most of what he had told me in the store. It was just as good the second time around as the first.

Note, this is published “Creative Commons, Attribution.” If you want to remix it, just link back to the original.